Release Date: October 29, 2014 (in shops NOW)
Writer: Matt Pizzolo
Artist: Anna Muckcracker Wieszczyk
Publisher: Black Mask Studios
GODKILLER is a debut comic that is almost crushed into oblivion by its own ambitious world-building. It’s a high-concept, post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk cornucopia of cultural rebellion, whose first half runs dangerously close to losing itself in its own set-up before giving the latter portion of the story over to a sympathetic orphaned kid who does a perfect job of shrinking Matt Pizzolo’s dark pop grandeur into bite-sized chunks. According to Pizzolo, GODKILLER’s theme centers on the war between religion and mythology—and you know that no book with a concept that big is going to be an easy read.
New York blows up in the first couple of pages. When we come to, Halfpipe, the goth-loli hooker seen on many of the covers and ad campaigns, is introduced as a client of the mysterious and past-his-prime Dr. Mulciber, who enlists her and others in a as-yet-vague crime-solving scheme before the brothel is blown up and its pimps and guards sliced up like vegetables by Dragos, who comes complete with lizard-claw-hands and epithets like “son of Bafomet” and “last of the earthbound reptilians”. It’s here where GODKILLER was in danger of losing me, as visions of every science fiction manga I’ve ever read began to circle my brain, and I waited out the battle with a hope for something slightly more accessible.
I got it with Tommy Stark, who spends his introductory page attempting to brand an iron onto his face before accusing himself of being a “pussy”. For some reason it’s always the maimed orphan boys who bring out the pathos in me (see: DEADLY CLASS, GODCHILD, Batman), and this one is a snark-marchine with a sister on life support about to be harvested for her organs. He regularly goes up against the powers that be who attempt to instruct him on “how to earn God’s love”, while he would, ahem, rather not (“I’ll suck in the soot and spit tar in your face,” he seethes). It’s very callous and depressing, but not so much so that you don’t want to see what happens to him. And sure enough, Halfpipe and Tommy’s narratives are about to intersect, bringing the chaos of Dragos and Mulciber and the outer world into the cramped, almost claustrophobic atmosphere of Tommy’s orphanage.
Anna Wieszcyk’s manga-inspired art is attractively messy, giving the sequences a dreamlike quality that makes the issue demand re-readings. I love the way every page looks different—sometimes it’s like MAD MAX and sometimes it’s like HELLSING; sometimes people’s faces dissolve into digital outlines and sometimes their cheekbones cut harder than a racetrack corner. Although Pizzolo’s writing is all over the place, he always has something to say, be it about blasphemy (“How do you kill a god?”), plastic surgery (“I don’t wanna get slashed up for a marketing stunt”), or just the relentless swearing of a scared kid hiding from his superior (“expletive-expletive-expletive”, etc). All this combined with the multiflavored art is rather overwhelming.
Bottom line: GODKILLER is not a simple book for simple minds, nor is it a perfect debut, but it’s bursting at the seams with strange ideas and wicked dialogue, and for my money, that’s enough to get me to come back.
October 30, 2014 By Holly Interlandi